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BELTANE

Other names for Beltane include: May Day, Cetsamhain ('opposite Samhain'), Walpurgisnacht (in Germany), and Roodmas (the medieval Church's name).

Magick associated with Beltane: abandon, assertion, beauty, conservation, creativity, desire, expansion, expressiveness, excitement, fertility magick, fulfillment, handfasting, life, passion, phallic magick, prosperity, safety, sensuality, sexuality, union, warmth, and willfulness.

Altar decorations: butter churns, chalice, daisy chains, eggs, flowery crowns, honey, may pole, mirrors, phallic symbols, rabbit symbols, ribbons, rod, spear, staff, strings of beads, and spring flowers.

Colours: blue, brown, dark yellow, green, pink, red, white, and yellow.

Foods: barley cake, chocolate, dairy products, herbal salads, honey, oatmeal and oats, oysters, red fruits, red wine.

Herbs / Incense / Oils: apple, birch, bluebells, broom, calendula, daisy, dittany of Crete, elder, fir, frankincense, foxglove, grape vine, hawthorn, hazel, honeysuckle, lilac, lily of the valley, mint, mugwort, oak, passion flower, primrose, rose, rosemary, rowan, sandalwood, St. John’s wort, thyme, vanilla, willow, yarrow, and yellow cowslip.

Stones: amber, bloodstone, carnelian, emerald, malachite, rose quartz, sapphire.

HISTORY OF BELTANE
Beltane ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar year, the month of May (Northern Hemisphere). This month is named in honor of the goddess Maia, originally a Greek mountain nymph, later identified as the most beautiful of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. By Zeus, she is also the mother of Hermes, god of magic. Maia's parents were Atlas and Pleione, a sea nymph.

The old Celtic name for May Day is Beltane, which is derived from the Irish Gaelic 'Bealtaine' or the Scottish Gaelic 'Bealtuinn', meaning 'Bel-fire', the fire of the Celtic god of light (Bel, Beli or Belinus). He, in turn, may be traced to the Middle Eastern god Baal.

By Celtic reckoning, the actual Beltane celebration begins on sundown of the preceding day, because the Celts always figured their days from sundown to sundown. And sundown was the proper time for Druids to kindle the great Bel-fires on the tops of the nearest beacon hill (such as Tara Hill, Co. Meath, in Ireland). These 'need-fires' had healing properties, and sky-clad Witches would jump through the flames to ensure protection.

Other Beltane customs include walking the circuit of one's property ('beating the bounds'), repairing fences and boundary markers, processions of chimney-sweeps and milk maids, archery tournaments, morris dances, sword dances, feasting, music, drinking, and maidens bathing their faces in the dew of morning to retain their youthful beauty.

In the words of Witchcraft writers Janet and Stewart Farrar, the Beltane celbration was principly a time of '...unashamed human sexuality and fertility.' Such associations include the obvious phallic symbolism of the Maypole and riding the hobby horse. Even a seemingly innocent children's nursery rhyme, 'Ride a cock horse to Banburry Cross...' retains such memories. And the next line '...to see a fine Lady on a white horse' is a reference to the annual ride of 'Lady Godiva' though Coventry. Every year for nearly three centuries, a sky-clad village maiden (elected Queen of the May) enacted this Pagan rite, until the Puritans put an end to the custom.

Long after the Christian form of marriage (with its insistance on sexual monogamy) had replaced the older Pagan handfasting, the rules of strict fidelity were always relaxed for the May Eve rites. Names such as Robin Hood, Maid Marion, and Little John played an important part in May Day folklore, often used as titles for the dramatis personae of the celebrations. And modern surnames such as Robinson, Hodson, Johnson, and Godkin may attest to some distant May Eve spent in the woods.

(This contains adaptions from Mike Nichols' articles, as well as my own contributions)